“Fashion is a product of its socioeconomic and cultural environment, it functions on many levels, it can be political, concept or statement driven, craft and production or a mannerism, style or image and it is a multi-million pound business. In recent years the subject of Fashion has also raised its status as culturally significant and as serious area of theoretical and academic debate and is also an important part of a country’s cultural capital, creative industries and economy.”
- Dr Jessica Bugg The Shifting Focus: Culture, Fashion & Identity
Clothes define the mane, it is said. But can they define a nation? How do you weave national identity into fashion, and is it commercially viable? Our panel of fashion designers and entrepreneurs from here and abroad weigh in on this issue.